Topic: GeForce 8xxx Series Questions -- 8600, 8800, EVGA vs. BFG vs. MSI, Etc Etc.

[MysterD]

I'm lookin' around spending $200 or less, if I am to upgrade...

I've been thinking of upgrading my vid card, eventually, since my GeForce 6600 seems to suddenly becoming the bare minimum for very brand new games -- such as say SC: Double Agent, R6: Vegas, the upcoming Bioshock, etc etc.

So, guys; a few questions....

BFG 8600 GTS is $200 at Best Buy.
How are BFG's cards that are actually Overclocked?
I remember hearing issues w/ their cards in the past, w/ them burning out and whatnot....
So, have they improved in that regard???

So, how much better will I fend w/ a GF 8600 GTS 256 MB RAM over my current 128 MB GF 6600 GT card on my current rig??? Do you think it'd be worth plunking down $200 for this?
(See my sig for my PC's specs....)

Seems like from my research, at like Newegg and TigerDirect, card goes for around $250, normally.

Okay, my watt supply is a 450....will I need to change that at all???
Or will I be fine w/ that on my current rig???

Also, I've been looking for benchmarks online. I've seen a bunch, but none comparing it to the GF 6600 GT. I'm looking for benchmarks to compare it for the GF 6600 GT, if anyone can find those....

EVGA GeForce 8600 GT 256 MB PCI-Express is $130 @ CC
Doesn't look like it perform as well as the GF 8600 GTS OC Card, but do you think it's the better bang for the buck, performance-wise?

EVGA GF 8800 GTS 320 MB PCI-Express is $280 @ CC.
Yeah, it's a lil' pricey to me and is out of my price range....
...So, what do you guys think of this card???

EDIT:
MSI's GeForce Cards
Anyone know much about MSI, as a brand and all???
How are MSI's respective 8600 GT, 8600 GTS, and 8800 cards???

[Pugnate]

D don't make the mistake of buying an 8600GTS.

Will tell you why soon.

[MysterD]

D don't make the mistake of buying an 8600GTS.

Will tell you why soon.

*waits for the reason why...*

[Pugnate]

OK the reason is that the midrange DX10 offerings so far this generation have been utter crap. Doesn't matter if the cards are ATi or Nvidia, the mid range lineup flat out sucks. Both the Nvidia 8600 series and the ATi 2600 series are serious wastes of money. In fact in most games the 7950GT outperforms the 8600GTS. I recently bought the 7950GT for my sister, who is running it with a E6300 and is getting extremely smooth action in all games out today. This is at resolutions of 1280x1024 with most options on full and even the occasional anti aliasing.

She has been storming through company of heroes every day, and getting smooth frames. She also plays Oblivion, The Sims 2, Virtua Tennis 3 etc, without issue.

Unfortunately the 8600GTS isn't capable. In fact the only advantage that the 8600GTS has over the 7950GT, is the ability to work in DX10. But while the 7950GT isn't DX10 capable, it isn't much of a disadvantage as the 8600GTS runs current DX10 games like shit.

So yea, stay clear of the 8600GTS.

Some benchies, courtesy of Anandtech:

We had no problems expressing our disappointment with NVIDIA over the lackluster performance of their 8600 series. After AMD's introduction of the 2900 XT, we held some hope that perhaps they would capitalize on the huge gap NVIDIA left between their sub $200 parts and the higher end hardware. Unfortunately, that has not happened.

In fact, AMD went the other way and released hardware that performs consistently worse than NVIDIA's competing offerings. The only game that shows AMD hardware leading NVIDIA is Rainbow Six: Vegas. Beyond that, our 4xAA tests show the mainstream Radeon HD lineup, which already lags in performance, scales even worse than NVIDIA. Not that we really expect most people with this level of hardware to enable 4xAA, but it's still a disappointment.

Usually it's easier to review hardware that is clearly better or worse than it's competitor under the tests we ran, but this case is difficult. We want to paint an accurate picture here, but it has become nearly impossible to speak negatively enough about the AMD Radeon HD 2000 Series without sounding comically absurd.

Even with day-before-launch price adjustments, there is just no question that, in the applications the majority of people will be running, AMD has created a series of products that are even more unimpressive than the already less than stellar 8600 lineup.

D, I would suggest you bite the bullet and buy the 8800GTS 320MB.

The card produces nearly identical performance to the 8800 640MB is most situations, however it seriously lags behind at high resolutions. If you plan on sticking to 1024x768 or 1280x1024, then go for the 8800GTS 320MB. If you want to go high rez widescreen then you need the 640MB card.

How are BFG's cards that are actually Overclocked?Huh
I remember hearing issues w/ their cards in the past, w/ them burning out and whatnot....

No you must be thinking of XFX. BFG had no such issues.

Having bought BFG, XFX and eVGA in the past, I'd say BFG were my favorite. While their packaging colors are bland, the box is generously huge and comes with a t-shirt. eVGA's packaging is the most conservative and their cards are pretty bland as well, but apparently their technical support is the best and they are the only ones that provide a bonus game. However I am suspicious of their step up program. What happens to the cards that are stepped up from? Are they repackaged and sold as new?

Finally XFX have the hottest packaging, and the hottest designs on their cards. The video cards glow green in the dark and have super fans. However there was that fiasco a while back where a lot of their cards were faulty.

In the end, it doesn't matter what company you choose. The performance differences are minimal, and I'd just go with what the best deal was.

So, how much better will I fend w/ a GF 8600 GTS 256 MB RAM over my current 128 MB GF 6600 GT card on my current rig??? Do you think it'd be worth plunking down $200 for this?
(See my sig for my PC's specs....)

Man eat mac and cheese for a month, but spend the extra $80 and get the 8800 320MB. And going from the 6600 to the 8800 will be heavenly.

Okay, my watt supply is a 450....will I need to change that at all???
Or will I be fine w/ that on my current rig???

I was initially going to say no, but the P4 hogs a lot of power. I'd say try the 450 -- which should be fine. The box recommends you go with a 500 watt PSU, but according to most test I've seen the 8800s under full system load don't need more than 400.

[JacksRag(e)]

The 8600 is gonna be a waste of money, I think if you're gonna want to be gaming.  It's not worth the money at all.  For another hundred, you could get the 8800 GTS 320 mb.  The 8600 is something I think of as a quick fix for those who want DX10.  You're not gonna get much use out of it,though.  If you want the 8xxx series, just save up a little longer and get a card that'll give you more value for the money.  
And 430 watts is cutting it a little close, I think.
I'd be cautious about it, still.  This is your power supply we're talking about.  A lot could go wrong if you're not careful.
And one thing I really like about XFX cards is their double lifetime warranty.  They'll replace the card for its entire lifetime if something goes wrong.  Even if you sell it to someone else, they're covered too, as long as they register the card.  It's nice having that kind of warranty, though it is a bit worrisome that they'd need to have it, I suppose.

[Pugnate]

"though it is a bit worrisome that they'd need to have it, I suppose."

haha..

[MysterD]

If you plan on sticking to 1024x768 or 1280x1024, then go for the 8800GTS 320MB. If you want to go high rez widescreen then you need the 640MB card.

That's the res' I run most games in, on my current PC -- 1024x768.
I don't go higher than that, normally; it's pretty much what I'm used to.

I really don't plan on upgrading this current PC to Win Vista (and DX 10) any time soon...
Though, there was a rumor we might eventually see DX10 on Win XP from Microsoft, in the future....

Anyways, my Win XP PC's over 2½ years old. I would say in a few years, I'll probably buy a new PC w/ Vista equipped right on it -- and w/ whatever's the awesome bad-ass GeForce vid card at that time period.

So on Win XP running plain ole DX9.0C, would the 79xx series still outperform the 8600 GTS in many instances?

[Quemaqua]

Damn it.  I wasn't going to look, but I just did, and eVGA has a superclocked 8800GTS for 300 clams.  That's so, so fucking tempting right now.  It's got a non-superclocked version for $269 also, though why not go a little higher for a few more bucks, right?  I've used eVGA cards before (have a 7800GT in my rig right now) and they've worked just dandy, and apparently they're a good bit cheaper than whatever you'd get from PNY or BFG.  The BFG cards are a good bit more expensive.  Is there a reason for that?

[JacksRag(e)]

Because BFG includes a t-shirt in their package?

[Quemaqua]

Fuck that.  The eVGA seems well-reviewed and the base model is $269.  A roughly-comparable version from PNY is $349.  What gives?  Nobody seems to be having much in the way of problems with the eVGA model.  Anyway... yes, tempting.  The superclocked version is sold out everywhere (and a lot of retailers only seem to carry BFG and XFX or PNY), but I'm really, really tempted to get that lesser model for BioShock.  The price isn't all that steep for what apparently is a pretty huge jump from a 7800, even just a jump to the budget model.

Arrrrgg.  The biggest issue is that I'll have to find a way to convince the wife to not hate me for doing this.  I think I may have to suffer for this one...

[MysterD]

Arrrrgg.  The biggest issue is that I'll have to find a way to convince the wife to not hate me for doing this.  I think I may have to suffer for this one...

Que, I wish you the best w/ that ordeal, brother...

[Quemaqua]

Heh, thanks.  I talked to her about it earlier, and I think she's more or less on board for it... just not quite yet.  So I'll likely be playing BioShock with my 7800, but trading up before long.  If performance in BioShock is bad, I may trade up very quickly, though supposedly a good rig that's got a lot going for it otherwise can make due with a 7800 without too much problem as long as the resolution isn't stressed too hard.

[MysterD]

Heh, thanks.  I talked to her about it earlier, and I think she's more or less on board for it... just not quite yet.

Sounds like you got a good start, at least!
Wo0t for that!!!

So I'll likely be playing BioShock with my 7800, but trading up before long.  If performance in BioShock is bad, I may trade up very quickly, though supposedly a good rig that's got a lot going for it otherwise can make due with a 7800 without too much problem as long as the resolution isn't stressed too hard.

Whether you have your 7800 or a new nice and shiny 8800 GTS -- hey, you'll be playing it on a better vid card than me.

I hope my 6600 GT can handle Bioshock well enough to suit my needs.
If Bioshock runs better than R6: Vegas PC or GRAW PC for me, I'll be VERY happy.

Out of curiosity, Que -- do you have any Unreal Engine 3 based games running on your 7800? If so, how do they run???

[Quemaqua]

No, I don't.  Most of those aren't yet released.

[MysterD]

No, I don't.  Most of those aren't yet released.

Very true, but a few (very few, actually) of those are out -- such as R6: Vegas.

I bet you're so gonna be in gaming heaven when you get that 8800 GTS. 
Especially when you run Bioshock, I bet!!

[Pugnate]

That's the res' I run most games in, on my current PC -- 1024x768.
I don't go higher than that, normally; it's pretty much what I'm used to.

I really don't plan on upgrading this current PC to Win Vista (and DX 10) any time soon...
Though, there was a rumor we might eventually see DX10 on Win XP from Microsoft, in the future....

Anyways, my Win XP PC's over 2½ years old. I would say in a few years, I'll probably buy a new PC w/ Vista equipped right on it -- and w/ whatever's the awesome bad-ass GeForce vid card at that time period.

So on Win XP running plain ole DX9.0C, would the 79xx series still outperform the 8600 GTS in many instances?

Depends on the 79xx card. The 7950s are all better than the 8600. The 7900GTX is better in most circumstances, while the 7900GS isn't. I think Tom's Hardware have those all video cards released benchmarks. They should compare everything to everything.

So D, what have you decided? You have a PCIe slot right?

And Que, good luck with your card. I wonder if the superclocked version provides real gains? The eVGA sounds like a good bet though.

[scottws]

Fuck that.  The eVGA seems well-reviewed and the base model is $269.  A roughly-comparable version from PNY is $349.  What gives?  Nobody seems to be having much in the way of problems with the eVGA model.  Anyway... yes, tempting.  The superclocked version is sold out everywhere (and a lot of retailers only seem to carry BFG and XFX or PNY), but I'm really, really tempted to get that lesser model for BioShock.  The price isn't all that steep for what apparently is a pretty huge jump from a 7800, even just a jump to the budget model.

I have an eVGA 8800 GTS 320 MB and run games at 1640 x 1500 or whatever that widescreen resolution is... no problem.  Great card.  It's fan isn't even very loud at all.

[Quemaqua]

That seems to be the general word around town, scott.  I think before too long (maybe my 2nd run through BioShock) and I'll pick up the 8800.  I think it'll be a good investment going forward.  Though I may wait a little longer to see if it goes down even further in price once more cards start coming out.  Not really sure yet.

[MysterD]

Depends on the 79xx card. The 7950s are all better than the 8600. The 7900GTX is better in most circumstances, while the 7900GS isn't. I think Tom's Hardware have those all video cards released benchmarks. They should compare everything to everything.

So D, what have you decided? You have a PCIe slot right?

I've decided, for the time being, to basically do nothing...

And yes, I have a PCI-E Slot.

[JacksRag(e)]

I was thinking of just buying another 7900 GS when it was cheaper and just going SLI.  But, I figure I'll save up a few more months then get an 8800 and whatnot.  Buh.

[MysterD]

AMD attacks NVidia on their claims of cheating in the HD HQV benchmark.

[gpw11]

That seems to be the general word around town, scott.  I think before too long (maybe my 2nd run through BioShock) and I'll pick up the 8800.  I think it'll be a good investment going forward.  Though I may wait a little longer to see if it goes down even further in price once more cards start coming out.  Not really sure yet.

And what would you be doing with your old card?  I may be interested in buying it off you.

[Quemaqua]

I'd certainly have no objection to selling it to you at a discount.  It's still holding up pretty well, and there haven't been any mechanical issues with it at all, well-ventilated system, etc.  But I have to decide to make the leap first, heh (though that might be easier to do if I knew I had a buyer for the old card...).

[Ghandi]

gpw, be wary of any "discounts" from Que. Lets just say, I was shedding clothes and a webcam was involved the last time I fell for one of his discounts.

[Quemaqua]

You know you liked it.

[Ghandi]

Yeah but getting paid for it just made me feel like such a whore.

Also, I'm happy that I've derailed yet another topic.

[Quemaqua]

You seem to have talents in this area.  We have taught you well.  Has the student now become... the master?

[gpw11]

My situation is I'm planning on building a new pc in the next couple months, and don't feel like throwing $300 down on a videocard.  The only other option would be a 7600GT for just over $100, but I have a feeling it would be a bit more of a bottleneck then I'd like and I'd end up upgrading in the next 6 months anyways.  Anyways, we'll keep in touch about it and I'll let you know.

[Quemaqua]

Most definitely.  Be happy to give you my own specs and benchmarks if you want to know how the card performs with my stuff.

[gpw11]

Yeah, that certainly may help me make a decision.  I'm not worried about missing out on DX10 features, at all so it'd probably meet my needs.  I take it it falls somewhere between a 7600GT and 7950, right?

How much generally would you be willing to part with it for, if and when you decide to?

[Quemaqua]

At this point, I'd part with it for an even hundred US $.

As far as its performance goes - basically, what you're looking at is a reliable DX9 card that's slightly better than just a workhorse.  If you're planning on staying at standard resolutions, then you should be happy.  If you're trying to get great performance with super-high widescreen resolutions, then your performance will probably drop a bit from what I'm used to.  For me, I want to get the 320MB 8800 because I don't plan on going widescreen for a while yet, so... yeah.  I don't know your thoughts there.  This card isn't overclocked at all, and in fact is probably on the low end.  I'm pretty sure I didn't spring for eVGAs slightly higher clocked versions.  If you're into that, I suspect you could squeeze a considerable amount of extra juice out of it.  I know people have liked eVGA cards for OC stuff, and 7800s seem to be popular for OCing.  It's also SLI-ready if you've got the setup for it.  I had at one point considered getting another one, but it just didn't happen.  I doubt this matters to you one way or the other.

As it stands now, stuff like Doom 3, FEAR, or Half-life 2 play nicely.  And as I stated, the thing *will* run BioShock at playable framerates with all settings cranked to max at 1280x1024, but you're looking at a 15-30 FPS range for that.  But obviously BioShock is a different beast, and more demanding than... well, pretty much anything I own.  See the BioShock thread if you want a few example screens of what this thing is putting out for the price.  BioShock rarely gets super boggy for me.  There are only a couple of effects that the card seems to choke on, and the game has never been rendered unplayable at all.  Drop the res a little and a couple sliders and you'd likely be looking at a more consistent 30 - 40 FPS.  The other recent game I tried was Overlord, which ran pretty well at the same res, only bogging down occasionally in a few certain areas.

So yeah, with a decent dual-core CPU and some fast RAM, expect it to do pretty well, and probably significantly better than a 7600GT.  And because you'd be getting it from me pretty cheap, I think you'd be getting good bang for your buck.  Reconditioned units seem to be going for like $150 or so, $200 on the high end.

[Pugnate]

Personally I think a 7900GS or perhaps even a 7950GT is pretty much going to be the bare min required in the next six to twelve months. Here is a list of upcoming titles:

The Witcher   
Need for Speed: Pro Street               
Gears of War                                   
Unreal Tournament 3                     
Crysis                                           
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men             
Call of Duty 4                               
Alan Wake                                       
Space Siege                                         
Left 4 Dead
Splinter Cell: Conviction
Age of Conan
Fallout 3

I think to enjoy those titles, you'll need some more muscle.

Here is a link to the Tom's HW VGA charts, where you can compare just about any card.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/23/vga_charts/

You can get the 7950GT by BFG for $140 after rebate from Newegg here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143090

If you compare the overall performance of a 7950GT to a 7800GT then you see a massive difference.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/charts16/715-710-318.png

There are other cards on that chart as well, and the numbers are basically a total of all the benchmarks run. Of course that includes 3D mark, so you are better advised looking for specific benchies.

Here are some from Anandtech:







Some more from another article:





----------------------------------------------

I apologize for this rather lengthy post, but to sum things up, this generation's mid range has totally sucked. Coming six months to a year after the X1950pros and the 7950GTs, the new mid range cards are just about equal and at times quite behind last gen's mid range. The worst part is that some of these cards are priced higher than the superior last gen mid range.

If you look at that upcoming games list above, you have to wonder if your future purchase will be satisfactory?

I recently bought two 7950GTs. One is an eVGA for my sis, and the other is a Foxconn for my little bro. Both blast away my cousin's 8600GTS, which makes him angry. I got them for $150 a piece (not counting shipping), which is quite awesome. I am not sure how well they will run UT3, Crysis, Fallout 3 and others, but looking at those Oblivion benchies, I am pretty sure that the 7950GT would be the bare min.
 
In my opinion you either buy a 7950GT/X1950pro, or spend a little more and purchase the 8800GTS 320MB.

Oh and Nvidia's 9xxxx series debuts in two to three month's time, so that could be interesting.

[Quemaqua]

This is sort of off topic, but you know what's funny?  Of the games you just listed, I care about two.  Except I really don't even care much about one of those two, which means I really only care about one.

[Pugnate]

From what I know of your gaming tastes, I can imagine you are interested in Fallout 3 and The Witcher. I remember you were kinda overloaded by the Unreal games, and Crysis hasn't gotten you exceptionally excited.

Anyway according to this:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=42199

The next cards from ATi and Nvidia are going to try and fix the mid range problem. Nvidia is apparently going for a 8700. I can imagine they aren't in too big of a hurry to get the 9xxxx series out, with ATi not providing much in the way of competition.

[iPPi]

I'm happy to see my 7900GTX is holding up, but I don't do very much hardcore gaming on my PC anymore except for WoW, and that doesn't push my PC at all. 

[Pugnate]

Oh yea. The 7900GTX is quite close in performance to the 8800GTS 320MB, which is pretty freakin' amazing for 7900GTX owners.

[Quemaqua]

From what I know of your gaming tastes, I can imagine you are interested in Fallout 3 and The Witcher. I remember you were kinda overloaded by the Unreal games, and Crysis hasn't gotten you exceptionally excited.

You know me well.  The Witcher is what I'm most interested in.  Fallout 3... I probably will be in the future, but not just yet.  Crysis bores me at this point, and while Unreal Tournament 3 will likely end up being fun and cool, I'm not going to be sold until I know exactly what's inside.

So Pug, do you think I should hold off on the 8800 320MB?

[Pugnate]

Well under normal circumstances I'd say yes because the 8800 320MB is a damn good card and at $250 (after rebate) the card is a steal, especially if you can get $100 for your 7800.

However:

a) You are satisfied with the current performances.
b) You have a 360, which takes care of titles like Gears of War, Fallout 3 if you don't want to play them on the PC.
c) You don't really care for Unreal 3 or Crysis.
d) The Witcher uses a modified version of the NWN1 engine, so it should work alright on a 7800.
e) Quake Wars apparently has the same requirements as Doom 3, which should again work well for you.
f) Fallout 3 will use a modified version of the Oblivion engine -- which you found ran well on your system.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a larger list of the hot titles with expected release dates. :

Stranglehold                                     9.05
Medal of Honor: Airborne                     9.04
Enemy Territory Quake Wars               10.02
Half-Life 2 Ep2 Team Fortress 2           10.09
Hellgate London                                10.30
The Witcher                                     10.30
Need for Speed: Pro Street                 10.30
Gears of War                                    11.01
Unreal Tournament 3                          11.12
Crysis                                              11.13
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men                     11.13
Call of Duty 4                                    11.05
Alan Wake                                         12.31
Space Siege                                         1.1

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nvidia will come out with the 8700 in late November, and a 9800 a bit after. The 9800 will definitely be at the $550 price point, and something that is targeted at $300 in the 9xxxx series won't hit till at least next year (at least I don't think so).

On the other hand, the only benefit of getting a 8800GTS now would be Bioshock. Who knows what the situation is when The Witcher is released?

I guess the question is, do you want to wait in hopes that the price drop comes, or a better product is available at $300? At the same time even if the card drops by $50 in three month's time, was that $50 worth the three months of wait?

One thing is for sure, for the past few years Nvidia has been releasing new cards around October/November. Even if those new products don't bring about a price drop, I don't think it is a huge loss to wait a bit longer? You've already been more patient than others who went ahead and bought their 8800GTS 320s at launch. Maybe you deserve something better for waiting? How about this?

VR Zone says it is coming Nov12

We first told you that G92 is 65nm based with 256-bit memory interface back in June and seems that HKEPC agrees with us now. Lots of confusion on the discussion forums that G92 has 512-bit memory interface and is the highest end GPU from NVIDIA which, in fact is not. HKEPC revealed that G92 will be launched on November 12th and will replace the current GeForce 8800 GTS series. It is meant to compete against the RV670 while the low end G98 will compete against the RV620. However, launch date for G98 has not firmed up yet. G92 supports PCI Express 2.0, 50GT/s texture fill rate, Pure Video Gen 3, HDMI and uses display port. G92 will still be named under GeForce 8 family.

If this turns out to be true, you should definitely wait till Nov. 

[MysterD]

Alan Wake, as far as we know, is planned for 2008.

[Quemaqua]

All interesting points.  The other factor is, of course, if I snap and end up buying a Wii.  This isn't likely, but you never know...